Zenka Mission,
P/Bag T 5398,
Bulawayo.
Dear Mr MacLeod,
On Friday . . . . I set out for Mathendele School, an area plagued with African Zionism. There is another sponsored school about six miles to the south-east of it about which I might have something to tell you later on. There is an enrolment at Mathendele this year of 124 children, their ages ranging from six to twelve years. There are five classes taught by three teachers. The buildings though built of mud-brick, are very clean and tidy. The time table was well planned, and the standard of work attained was good. The children’s Bible knowledge was good. The only religious instruction these children receive, I believe, is in school. There are no professed Christians in the area. The Headmaster attends church most regularly and contributes to the Sustentation Fund. We trust that the teaching which the children receive in the school will prove an antidote against Zionism and other false religions and contribute towards the general advancement of a heathen people. After making a few remarks about personal salvation to the assembled school and a few adults, and offering up prayer on their behalf, we set off in the afternoon for Donsa Dam School.
Saturday morning was spent making preparations for Sabbath, and in the afternoon I set off, with a teacher, to visit some of the homes. We had not gone far when we came across a “beer-drink.” The participants sat in silence while we read Ephesians chapter 5, and made comments on several points in the chapter. One sad feature of this beer party was that the beer was being sold to raise money for the man to whom the house belonged. We went to the Headman’s home hoping to persuade him to stop such practices. We found him intoxicated. He had been sent his free quota of beer earlier in the day, from the house in which the beer party was being held. He was interested mainly in regaling us with tales of the early pioneer days of Rhodesia, and after enduring one or two of these tales we retreated. However the home of his eldest son and heir lay on the way back to the school. He promised to try to stop the selling of beer, to limit the quantity drunk on Saturday and the Lord’s Day, and to have all “beer-drinks” finished by 5 p.m. We arrived back at the school feeling tired and defeated. The “beer-drink” went on till midnight. The home was not far from the school, and the singing and hand-clapping came all too clearly over the quiet tropical night air.
I was upset not merely on account of lack of sleep but I had concluded that the prospects for the Donsa area from a Christian point of view were very bleak indeed. Some time before eleven at night I took up my Bible to read. It ‘happened’ to open at 1 Cor. 6, 11, and before turning up where I intended to read, I read “and such were some of you, but we are washed, etc.” I saw then that from the standpoint of God’s sovereignty, and through the sovereign, powerful, miraculous work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, there is nothing impossible for Donsa. My personal gloom was dispelled and I was glad that the future for these heathen people might not be as dark as I had imagined.
On Sabbath morning the services began at 11.30 and there was a second at 1.30 p.m. There were at least 50 present of whom 30 were adults. The Headman’s son asked me if I would have a service at the Headman’s village at 7 p.m., and I agreed. There were over a hundred present at this service, while we preached with a measure of longing for their salvation, from Matthew 23, 37. It is the desire of Christ to gather sinners to Himself. I might remind you that Mr Sithole the old elder at Donsa died earlier this year, and that the place since then has to be supplied with preaching every second Sabbath from Zenka. It is 35 miles away by the shortest route and this makes supply difficult.
On Monday I examined the school as I had done at Mathendele on Friday. There are two teachers at this school whose parents are communicants in the Church. Probably both were baptized in infancy. Although they are not themselves communicants they are co-operative in every way. They show a more than ordinary interest by their regularity in attendance on preaching, and organising all the preparation necessary at communion times.
Yours sincerely,
Donald M. Campbell.